By now, the audience has packed in together, as many as will fit, and they seem to lean forward as one, listening to Grom’s speech. He turns to Paca. “Do you now deny that you hid on land, Queen Paca? In fear for your life?”

Quietly, she shakes her head.

Grom nods. “Friends, my younger brother, Prince Galen, is the ambassador to the humans, which requires his presence on land from time to time. It is his belief that Paca possesses, not the Gift of Poseidon, but the skills of a human. Prince Galen has informed me that humans use their hands to instruct dolphins. They do this for entertainment. And indeed, it is very entertaining, is it not? But the Gift of Poseidon is not intended for entertainment. It is intended for our very survival. I fail to see how asking dolphins to twirl in place will ensure our survival. What’s more, friends, is that it is a well-known fact that the Gift of Poseidon is the result of vocal commands. I have seen with my own eyes, just as you have, that Paca indeed talks to these dolphins. Now I would ask my queen to instruct them to action without using her hands.”

Paca bites her lip. “My pets are tired, Highness. They can sense the tension among us and it makes them nervous.”

“Of course, I understand that, my queen,” Grom says, not unkindly. “But I must insist that you do it, just the same.”

She looks to her father for help, but Jagen does nothing except seethe in his rapidly declining section of Loyals. Galen swells with pride for his brother.

That is, until he senses Emma. Toraf is close behind her.

No!

Now is the worst possible time for Toraf to throw a Half-Breed into the now-receding turmoil. To throw Emma into it. Grom is doing so well in reasoning with the Arena, winning them back over to the side of logic. Emma’s appearance will surely deflate Grom’s arguments. Which is probably Toraf’s plan.

Rayna tenses up, alert to her mate’s presence drawing closer. A Loyal Tracker whispers something in Jagen’s ear and he smiles wide. No doubt the Tracker has confirmed Toraf’s—and Emma’s—imminent arrival.

Grom continues, oblivious to the chaos about to unfold. “It is my belief that the Royals, from this generation and the generations before, have never strayed. It is my belief—” Grom stops, staring past the rim of the Arena over the hot ridges. He glances back to Nalia, who’s expression is a mixture of terror and desperation. She nods to him.

Emma.

Suddenly, a commotion begins at the side of the Arena, where Emma’s pulse is coming from. Why is Toraf so far behind her? The least he could do is see her safely arrived.

Apprehension stabs Galen all over like the sting of a man-o’-war. He silently curses Toraf for bringing her, and Emma for believing whatever it is that he’d told her to convince her to come. He squints in the direction of her pulse and sees what looks like an underwater cloud moving toward the Arena. Galen has never seen anything like it.

And apparently, neither has anyone else.

What could it possibly be? A human military experiment? Are Emma and Toraf caught in the middle of it? Galen knows that in the past, humans have experimented with their sonar weapons and underwater bombs. Could this be a new way to wage war?

As it moves closer, Galen can make out smaller bodies within the mass. Whales. Sharks. Sea turtles. Stingrays. And he knows exactly what’s happening.

The darkening horizon engages the full attention of the Arena; the murmurs grow louder the closer it gets. The darkness approaches like a mist, eclipsing the natural sunlight from the surface.

An eclipse of fish.

With each of his rapid heartbeats, Galen thinks he can feel the actual years disappear from his life span. A wall of every predator imaginable, and every kind of prey swimming in between, fold themselves around the edges of the hot ridges. The food chain hovers toward, over them, around them as a unified force.

And Emma is leading it.

Nalia gasps, and Galen guesses she recognizes the white dot in the middle of the wall. Syrena on the outskirts of the Arena frantically rush to the center, the tribunal all but forgotten in favor of self-preservation. The legion of sea life circles the stadium, effectively barricading the exits and any chance of escaping.

Galen can’t decide if he’s proud or angry when Emma leaves the safety of her troops to enter the Arena, hitching a ride on the fin of a killer whale. When she’s but three fin-lengths away from Galen, she dismisses her escort. “Go back with the others,” she tells it. “I’ll be fine.”

Galen decides on proud. Oh, and completely besotted. She gives him a curt nod to which he grins. Turning to the crowd of ogling Syrena, she says, “I am Emma, daughter of Nalia, true princess of Poseidon.”

He hears murmurs of “Half-Breed” but it sounds more like awe than hatred or disgust. And why shouldn’t it? They’ve seen Paca’s display of the Gift. Emma’s has just put it to shame.

She gives the Arena time to digest that, striking a regal pose she only could have learned from Rayna. An undertone of shock rumbles through the assembly. Some can’t take their eyes off the mass of darkness surrounding them. Most can’t take their eyes off Emma.

After a while, she raises a finger to her lips, the human signal for silence. The Arena seems to know what she means. “I’ve come to testify on behalf of the Royals. As you can see, I have some evidence that might have been overlooked.” She motions to outside of the Arena, where her collection of meat-eaters hover in wait of her next order.

When Jagen detaches from the crowd and comes toward Emma, Galen puts himself between them. “You’re not welcome here, Half-Breed!” he snarls.